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Drinking a Tree

Today, a friend and I made the 45 minute trip to Mitchell and back. We went down because their local K-Mart is closing soon and I thought it would be a good idea to go down and get some discounts.
The last time I was there, in December, I found a WWE Elite Dallas Page action figure and elected not to buy it that day. After talking to my friend Art about action figures the other day I got the bug to buy some more. So I went down and sure enough, DDP was still waiting and now he was 40% off so I got him for around $14. I probably could have bought a couple of other ones but there’s got to be a limit to how I spend my money this month.

After leaving K-Mart we went and looked at their Wal-Mart to see what figures they had in stock. They didn’t really have any that I couldn’t find here so I decided to hold off on buying anything else.

Then we went to one of our favorite Mitchell stores, the Sweet Fix Candy & Pop Shop. They have a lot of different kinds of candy, as you would expect with a name like that, some of which is not the easiest to find. They also have a wall of different types of soda and that is where the title of this post comes in to play.

My friend, who is slightly more adventurous than I when it comes to trying weird flavors of stuff bought something called Spruce Beer. Here is the difference between my friend and I. He buys something called Spruce Beer while I buy Watermelon and Cherry Limeade flavored soda. Last time we went there together, he bought a bottle of bacon flavored soda which I thought tasted familiar but nothing like bacon.

Anyway, the subject of his purchase was discussed as we were checking out and the cashier shared with us that she had been told that it tasted like drinking a tree. Well, now I was kind of intrigued. Sure, I can honestly say that I have never wondered what drinking a tree would be like or why anyone would want to do such a thing but once the thought had entered my head I was hoping he’d at least let me have a taste.

After we had lunch, we had one more stop to make. As we were headed that direction he opened his bottle of soda. First, we took a sniff because when you are going to drink a soda that tastes like a tree you want to first know if it smells like a tree. Yes, dear reader, it did smell like a tree or at least like an air freshener.

Then for the sake of the money he spent to buy this thing, he took a drink. He said it tasted like pine-sol which he also said he has never consumed. Well, I now had even more information than before and yet still needed to at least taste this beverage. He offered me one and I immediately thought that if I could drink a tree it would taste a lot like this.

In the interest of full disclosure I think I should mention a couple of things. First, we drank it out of a glass bottle. Glass bottles are easily my favorite way to consume soda with a keg coming in at a close second. I think Coke is best when it is in a glass bottle. Having said that, I am not sure if the same would hold true for Spruce Beer or not and I have no real desire to find it in a plastic bottle for comparison sake. I’m pretty sure I would not enjoy a fountain version.
The second thing is that it was warm. I don’t know if being chilled would have made this a better drink or not, what’s the difference between drinking a tree and drinking a cold tree? Now having gotten those two things out of the way I will tell you what I thought of drinking a tree.

Honestly, it wasn’t terrible. Granted, I’m not going to dump all my Coke or Dr. Pepper or Strawberry Crush down the drain and run out to buy several cases of Spruce Beer. But, I have had much worse. I told my friend that he should buy some more and mix it with other flavors of soda. Forget Coke with Lime, what about Coke with Spruce? He could get another bottle of Bacon Soda and formulate the Bacon Tree…a tree that grows bacon is the dream, right? I can’t imagine it being all that refreshing a drink after a long afternoon out in the sun doing yardwork.
The problem is that the aftertaste wasn’t so great and it lingered. I had to turn to my trusty bottle of A&W Root Beer to help wash it away. So Root Beer is definitely superior to Spruce Beer.

What did I get at the Candy & Pop Shop? Well, aside from the Watermelon and Cherry Limeade soda, I got some grape and watermelon Laffy Taffy. Then I purchased the most adventurous thing I thought I could stomach. I got some pancake and maple syrup flavored jelly bellies. Yeah, I’m a hardcore risk taker now.
At our last stop which is a store that sells video games of all sorts I got a third bottle of soda. It is Ramune which is a Japanese soda that comes in a bottle that has a marbel in the lid that must be pushed down into the bottle to access the drink. I got Strawberry although one of these days I am going to try the melon because that is just the kind of risk I take.

All in all it was a good day with a good friend. I got to cross drinking a tree off my bucket list even before it ever made it onto the bucket list. I feel accomplished and have a new action figure to add to my collection. Hard to beat that, I think.